The first ground blizzard of the season hit western and southern Minnesota on Tuesday, February 11, 2003.
The event began as a powerful Alberta Clipper brought light snow over southern Minnesota.
There was a band of heavier snow Tuesday morning with 1 to 3 inches from La Crosse, Wisconsin to
Watertown, South Dakota. Then strong northwest winds moved in behind the main area of
snow as it moved off to the south east. The peak gust seen was 63mph around noon at
Windom. The snow rapidly moved out of the Twin Cities area by lunch time and the
skies quickly cleared. There was enough instability for some convective snow showers
to develop and these briefly reduced visibility with the blowing snow over the Twin
Cities through early afternoon.

Listed below is information from a National Weather Service Public information statements about the strong winds
and damage from the ground blizzard.